Bear Bait (9781101611548) (29 page)

“You’re weird.” Lili leaned forward and hugged her.
“Thank you, Aunt Summer. I really, really can’t go back to being a mud girl.”

“
DEBORAH
and Emily and George Fishkiller? That doesn’t make any sense.” Joe handed her the casserole pan he’d just washed. Sam rinsed it under the faucet before setting it in the drying rack. Beside them, the dishwasher thrummed in its wash cycle.

“And everything you did at thirteen made sense?”

Joe smiled. “Point taken. But we did think about sex. A lot.” He handed her a saucepan. “Pretty much all the time.”

“When I was thirteen,” Sam confessed, “we believed that aliens would land on a night of the full moon to take all the young women to their planet for procreation purposes.”

He looked surprised. “So you hid under your bed every full moon?”

“
Au contraire, mon ami
. We had our suitcases packed. We were ready to create the brave new species.”

He groaned. “So you did think about sex.”

“But only in the most noble way. We weren’t thinking about the local boys. Too common.” She stacked the saucepan on top of the casserole dish in the drainer, and then leaned back against the counter. “We were reserving our virginity. For the aliens.”

They were still chuckling when Laura came in. “I want to trade kids’ bedtime for kitchen cleanup. You guys sound like you’re having way too much fun in here.”

“Perfect timing.” Joe swept out his hands to emphasize the spotless kitchen.

“Thank you for talking to Lili,” Laura told Sam. “She looks up to you. Maybe she’ll decide to become a writer or a ranger.”

“Probably not a ranger. It sounds like feds are not in favor among Lili’s peers right now.”

Laura grimaced. “That attitude seems to be going
around. I’m putting together an exhibit at the library on the federal employees that the kids never think of, like test pilots, CDC doctors, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Mack is going to give a talk about botany. Show the kids that federal employees are more than cops. Not that cops aren’t wonderful.” She gently punched Joe in the arm.

“Speaking of cops.” Sam turned to Joe. “You said Chase called you today?”

“He wanted to know about Jack Winner’s associates.” He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and offered it to her.

“So do I.”

“Coffee?” Laura waved a mug in the air.

“No, thanks,” Sam said. Somewhere around age thirty-two, Sam had found she could no longer drink coffee after 4
P.M.
and get to sleep before 2
A.M.

Laura took a seat at the kitchen table. Taking his wife’s hand, Joe told Sam, “I get most of my local information from Laura. She knows who’s who around town a lot better than I do.”

Laura sipped her coffee. “It’s one of the benefits of being the town librarian.”

“Anyhow,” Joe continued, “most of Winner’s associates are relatives—more Winners, and the Jorgensens. All okay as far as I know. But there’s one bad apple.”

“Philip King.” Laura grimaced. “He comes in to use the Internet computers once in a while. He gives me the creeps.”

“He should.” Joe took a sip from his cup. “He’s the guy I wanted to warn you about. King’s only twenty-six and he’s already done time for assault and attempted robbery, and that was after he graduated from juvie, where he landed after stabbing a teacher’s aide with a knife. A real sweetheart. Now that we know his history, we’ll keep a close eye on him.”

Sam decided that she wasn’t camping out alone again before the end of her contract. “What does he look like?” She wanted to be able to identify Philip King on sight.

“He looks like a weightlifter,” Laura said. “Wears muscle shirts most of the time.”

“Blond crew cut. Five-nine. About one seventy pounds.” Joe added. He removed a photo from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table to her. “Here’s his last booking photo.”

Sam studied the picture. He wasn’t the rose thrower; that guy had dark hair. He might be the illegal hunter she’d met in the woods a couple of weeks ago. It was hard to say, since the guy had worn a cap and camouflage makeup, and her main focus had been his rifle. She passed the photo back. “Did you tell Chase all this?”

Joe nodded. “We wanted you to know, too, especially now with Caitlin Knight…”

“Got it.” Sam flicked her hand to indicate he didn’t need to elaborate. “What about Garrett Ford?” She’d driven by his place but there’d been no vehicle in his carport.

“Still not home.”

In other words, nothing had been resolved. Anywhere. With anyone. Sam stood up. “I’d better get to the bunkhouse. Thanks for the meal, Laura; those enchiladas were wonderful. I want the recipe.” She’d give it to Blake. She looked at Joe. “You’ll let Lili keep the tattoo?”

“For now.” Joe made a face. “But I still don’t like it. I don’t understand why it’s so important to her.”

Sam shrugged. “Peer pressure. She said it shows she’s part of the club, that she’s not a mud girl anymore.”

“Mud girl?” Laura’s back went rigid.

“Is that a soccer thing?”

“I sure hope so,” Laura said.

“‘Mud people’ is racist slang for anyone who’s not white as snow,” Joe explained. “Blacks, Indians, Latinos, Asians.”

Sam abruptly felt ashamed of being one hundred percent Caucasian. “Maybe ‘mud girl’ doesn’t mean the same thing to thirteen-year-olds as ‘mud people’ does to adults.”

“I hope Lili’s never even heard of ‘mud people.’” Laura sipped from her coffee mug. “I’ll find a way to ask her tomorrow.”

Sam fished her keys from her pocket. “I’d better get back before the kids short-sheet my bed.”

On the drive to the bunkhouse, Sam used her cell phone to check her voice mail and was delighted to find a message from Chase. “
Mi amor
, I was just thinking of you. Sorry I missed you.
Te amo.
”

I love you
. It was the first time he’d said that. How could three words—or only two in Spanish—be so thrilling and so frightening at the same time?

She was thirty-seven. She didn’t really believe in happily-ever-after endings anymore. She couldn’t remember if she ever had. But the thought of Chase always gave her the warm fuzzies, as Blake would say. She speed-dialed his number, and got a recording saying he was not available. She tried not to think about all the possible reasons he didn’t answer.

“Querido,”
she murmured to the recorder, “I’m sorry I missed you, too. I’m sleeping indoors tonight, and I hope you are, too. Stay safe, lover.”

The bunkhouse was dark and quiet when she let herself in. It must have been a hard day for trail breaking; it was barely ten and even Blackstock was snoring in his bunk. After getting up at five thirty, she was bleary-eyed, too. She sat at the kitchen table for a few minutes, sipping shiraz from her commuter cup, inhaling the leftover aroma of chili, and watching through the window as clouds swallowed the stars. She missed the warmth of a cat on her lap.

After brushing her teeth, she changed her clothes in the bathroom and slipped into bed. Overhead, rain now pattered against the metal roof in a steady rhythm. She didn’t envy the trail crew their job tomorrow. Working in the rain guaranteed staying damp all day long, either wet from the downpour without rain gear or swimming in sweat inside it.

Before closing her eyes, she put the phone to her ear and played Chase’s message again.
Te amo
.

“I think I love you, too,” she whispered softly to the darkness.

“That’s nice,” Maya’s voice, raspy with sleep, emanated from the other bunk. “But you’re really not my type.”

IT
was still raining the next morning, making parts of Sam’s drive from the bunkhouse to the district headquarters a slippery affair. Inside the building, she shook out her raincoat and hung it on the peg in the big shared office. Another fax was waiting in her box. Hoyle wanted to know how her management plan was coming along and whether he could take a look at her speech for the upcoming conference.

The nerve!
The Edge
was paying her to give that speech, and she wasn’t about to let Richard Best control the content, let alone Peter Hoyle, who had absolutely no authority over her, or at least wouldn’t in ten days. Besides, all she had written was the first line of her speech, and she wasn’t even too sure about those four words.

She flipped open her laptop, fuming as she waited for it to boot up. By the time she remembered that the office did not have wireless service and switched the phone line from the ancient desktop computer to her laptop, she’d calmed down a little. She’d worked alone for too long; Hoyle
did
have a right to check up on her in her current position, especially when she was so close to the end of her assignment.

She logged in to the NPS mail system and sent the assistant superintendent a message that all was going well, promising that she’d have a draft management plan in a couple of days, and asking if Hoyle wanted to see it then
via e-mail attachment or courier. She didn’t offer to drive the sixty miles to deliver it to Hoyle’s office.

She’d already sent that message when she had the bright idea of admitting that she hadn’t progressed very far on her speech and asking for Hoyle’s suggestions. She didn’t have to take them, after all. It might be instructive to know what was in the head of an NPS honcho these days on the topic of environmentalists as an endangered species.

Hoyle’s response came back almost immediately, asking for the draft plan via e-mail and suggesting a historical approach for the speech, including early environmentalists such as Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir.
Ask what the country would be like today if their opposition had triumphed
, Hoyle wrote.

It was a damn good idea. Sam could see how she could start the speech off that way, and work up to the struggles in current times, showing the importance of environmental and conservation champions in shaping America’s landscape and history. She was embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of it first. Hoyle should probably be giving this speech instead of her.

Dynamite suggestions—thank you!
she replied. For once, she could be sincere with her boss.

She hadn’t been working on her draft plan for more than five minutes when Hoyle sent a list of web links and a note saying that he would give Sam a folder of articles after Lisa Glass’s service on Wednesday.

She clicked a link about John Muir and brought up the web browser. Interesting. She knew about Muir and The Sierra Club, but she hadn’t known that Muir had been so influential with Teddy Roosevelt and largely responsible for the creation of many of the Western parks. The things you could find out on the Internet.

Inspired, she brought up the search engine and typed
life symbol
. She could research Lili’s tattoo design from here. Sure enough, there were sites explaining various life symbols, including trees of life and ankhs and Celtic crosses. She waded through the list, brought up the second
page of links. The second item there was
A Visual Database of Extremist Symbols, Logos, and Tattoos
. Extremists? She remembered Joe’s “mud people” comment. With a sense of dread, Sam clicked the link.

Hate on Display
. Cripes, there was a whole database. She clicked
Graphic Symbols
. There was Lili’s tattoo, the very first symbol in the list. A life rune, according to the description, an ancient symbol that originally signified life, creation, rebirth, and renewal, used by the Nazis on the graves of SS soldiers, and used by racists to denote “Giver of Life” status for women in the white supremacist movement.

Oh, no. The connection between Lisa’s comments and Lili’s was starting to make an ugly sense now. Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Chase. Miraculously, he answered.

“Chase, I’ve got it! The tattoo, swarthy, mud people, Lisa’s Bible, the drawing of the Jewish kid—it all makes sense now.”

“I’m glad to hear that,
querida
. Now, take a deep breath and then explain to me what the heck you’re talking about. Mud people?”

Realizing that she was close to hyperventilating, she took that deep breath. “Sorry. Where are you?”

“Just outside of Boise.”

So he was getting farther away by the minute. “Is Nicole with you? What happened to the meetings in Seattle?”

“Nicole’s driving. Seattle was yesterday.”

It was a reminder that her world was much smaller and slower than his. She wasn’t ready for him to leave. But he’d return. Eventually. When it was convenient.

“What’s this about the tattoo?”

“It’s a life rune, Chase. I found this website that says it’s a symbol used by”—she checked the screen—“the National Alliance.”

“I thought the National Alliance was dead.” He sounded grim. In the background, she heard Nicole say something in response, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“I suppose it could be just coincidence—I mean, it
is
an ancient symbol—but remember Lisa’s Bible and how she talked about the one Jewish kid and used the word
swarthy
? That word is all over this database. And Lili Choi’s got the same tattoo and last night she was talking about not being a mud girl anymore.” Sam switched the phone to her left ear so she could use her right hand to mouse over to
Number symbols
.

“Mud girl?”

“Well, I think it’s a version of mud people, which is white supremacist jargon—”

“I’m familiar with the term.”

He would be, she supposed, being half Latino and half Lakota. She stared at the new page that came up. “Five, Chase. I’m looking at it. Five stands for ‘I have nothing to say.’ Oh jeez, there’s a fourteen, too. Hang on.”

Broadband would have been handy right now, but she was stuck with the NPS dial-up connection. Finally, the screen redrew. “Fourteen stands for: ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’ Coined by David Lane from The Order.” She clicked the Back button. “The numbers we found on those trees are some kind of racist code.”

“Give me the URL of this website.”

While she waited for the screen to display the last page, she read him the address at the top of the browser. The list of numbers finally reappeared. “There’s no 8128, Chase.”